Supersymmetry
by RelentlessRecusant
Summary: In the most disparate of foes, startling symmetries emerge. From an encounter between a Central Intelligence Agency operator and a forlorn, particular silver-haired assassin in Africa, we learn of the textured past of one Christie Allen. Work in progress.
1. Encounter of the Third Kind

**Supersymmetry**, a series of Dead or Alive short stories by **RelentlessRecusant**

About the Author: The author was a former undergraduate at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where he researched pluripotent stem cells and reprogramming.

About the Story: _In the most disparate of foes, startling symmetries emerge. From an encounter between a Central Intelligence Agency operator and a forlorn, particular silver-haired assassin in Africa, we learn of the textured past of one Christie Allen. Work in progress._

_"[This] postulates a more extensive symmetry ... which is manifest in this world."_

_-_Wilczek, F. "In Search of Symmetry Lost". _Nature_ (433): 239-247.

**Dramatis Personae**

Christie Allen: Female, 24 years old. British national. Currently residing in the African continent.

"Noble-Six": Male, 33 years old. American national. Central Intelligence Agency, Special Activities Division. Formerly 1st SFOD-D, U.S. Army.

**Johannesburg, South Africa**

**March 2017, eight years in the future**

He moved with the deliberate purpose of murder—every movement exacting, each stride purposeful. As the first liveried man moved to knock his knife from his fingers, his forearm scissored again his windpipe, crushing his larynx and sweeping him aside into the wall, his fingers clawing at his collapsed throat in his death paroxysms. Behind him, his compatriot leveled a handgun—and in a sinuous blur, the black-edged carbide knife struck his right shoulderblade. As the man staggered, blood and marrow leaking from his lacerated arm, he moved behind him in a single motion, and wrenched his arm across his throat and applied torque. The man fell instantaneously, his body torpid and vertebrae broken.

Extracting himself from the broken bodies, he moved forward, undaunted; his steps clipped and precise—the two languish corpses in his wake, rich arterial blood still leaking from their shattered selves.

The air was laden and morose, the countenance bleak and despairing—he strode along a hallway saturated with detritus: the oily slick of dried blood, fractures betraying disrepair, and the necrotic corpses of smaller creatures. Faded color adorned the walls: evidence at a feeble attempt at aestheticism that had too gone into ruin as the decades had come and left. The hall served to mirror the turpitude of its contiguous African civilization: human endeavor and enterprise, subsumed by avarice, malice, and time.

The once-amber numbering of the suite doors had long since faded, but it was of no consideration to him: he had memorized the exact number of gaits from the building's entrance to the room which he was seeking. The tradescraft of land navigation and orienteering had been a fundamental tenet of training in the U.S. Army Special Forces—although it had required some ingenuity to translate from outdoors orienteering to the indoors talent he was practicing now.

He moved deftly, counting his steps, the phallic barrel of his black-tinted sidearm raised in attention as he eyes curtly dashed from dimly-lit corner to corner—alert for the contrast in shades of grey or black that would betray more would-be-attackers.

At last, he stopped his ceaseless pacing: three hundred and fourteen paces from the entrance, and one hundred and six paces since he had deprived his last two assailants of their lives. He found himself staring at an oblique rectangular door with a peeling teal finish. Yet, glancing from left to right, he could discern no difference between this particular door and dozens of identical, adjacent doors: the entire building was a decadent slum, with thousands of the same, identical teal door standing guard before thousands of individual suites.

And in one of those thousand suites—in one, there was something he sought.

Glancing back and forth again, he became certain that once the numbering had faded from the doors, there was nothing to tell them apart: they were all of the same construction, of fibrous and sagging wood and parched lips of paint adorning them.

He steadied the handgun in his right hand, and his left hand slid to the recessed shape of his combat knife. He inhaled once deeply, and then kicked in the door with a sure conviction.

His eyesight immediately discerned between the dreary and morose shades of black in the darkened hallway and the interior of this apartment suite: the latter definitely carried signs of habitation. Particular effort had been made to awash the walls with a nice tint of white, and small, frivolous pictures had been attached to—

The blow was of such power that his world wheeled: he staggered catatonically to the side, hands of over his head, a rill of blood running from his pierced lip. His vision trembled and whirled. His prying fingers instinctively sought his knife.

The second blow connected directly with his sternum—it sent him flying backwards, and he slid and slammed against a table, the impact bringing a sharp pain to his spinal cord: and that fresh pain fueled him, and opened his eyes—

He finally saw his attacker. He felt a small thrill run through him as he took in her features: she was svelte and lovely, with dangerous deep viridian eyes and pale skin that accentuated her lush and dark carmine lips. Underneath her face, she was utterly captivating, a seamless meld of muscle and feminine grace.

He hesitated for a moment, but his anger was renewed when he recognized the facial features of his quarry in her face—his _prey_ had ambushed him. Somehow he had committed a fatal mistake upon entrance of this room: and she had turned the tables on him, attacked him from behind. Frustration welled within him: he would correct his error shortly enough.

He leapt for his handgun, still on the floor—

Her lovely lips curled in a derisive sneer, and in a single kick, she sent the handgun, spinning, across the room. Enraged, he raised himself, and drew his knife—and from half the room away, she drew her own sidearm.

Her voice was cutting and strident, but in it, it carried a sonorous heritage of command: the peals over her voice washed over him, multiple layers of power and authority—too much to comprehend.

"It's over."

His eyes flitted from his handgun—now on the floor, behind her—his knife, which was in hand, and her own handgun—leveled at his chest, his center of mass. In the brief lull, his eyes flickered over the design of her weapon: an ambidextrous .45-caliber M1911 handgun, in professional black finish, and appended with an underbarrel unlit flashlight, in the tradition of Special Forces units across the world. Drawing his eyes from her weapon to her body, he was struck by professionalism and skill—her weapon was of professional choice, her close-quarters technique was certainly extraordinary, and from her visage—her elegant platinum hair was astray, and her white babydoll dress was rumpled—it looked like until recently, she had been asleep, and she had just woken and managed to defeat him.

Her chest rised and waned as she breathed hard from the martial exertions she had just practiced, but in her ardent, fiery eyes, he spied an emotion: victory. Despite her hard breathing, her face was flush with victory, and he found that delicious.

Despite the handgun aimed at his chest.

Her lips curled with confidence as she cocked the pistol, a half-second away from ending his life—

—And he realized how dire his situation was.

He injected confidence and a dozen year's worth of experience into his voice: "Pull that trigger, and in five seconds, a dozen Delta Force operators will be crawling over this building and up your ass."

Her beautiful, dark lips curled upwards in an impetuous smile.

"Ah, really? I was expecting some kind of ultimatum with more dramatic aplomb."

He took in her confident stance and the weapon leveled at him, and sickeningly, realized that he was about to die. A life spent in the service of the U.S. Armed Forces and then the Central Intelligence Agency—a life of talent, skill, memories, expectations, and emotions—was about to be ended with a pull of a trigger in the remote hinterlands of Africa.

He was about to die.

That realization injected shock into him: he had never felt that dire emotion before. Always, he had been in control: when he toured with the U.S. Army 1st SFOD-D, and then in the CIA's Special Activities Division. Always, he had been victorious, carried the laurels of complete domination and a scepter that had killed hundreds of anti-American insurgents across the world.

And now, this _woman_ was in control. In his last moments, the tables of power had been reversed. And the cruel trick was on him.

He tried to forestall the inevitable.

"Kill me, and you will make enemies you will have never wished to make."

Her voice was truculent and mocking. "I think I'm finding your petty attempts at scaring me amusing me. You walked into the goddamn room, _sir_. When I'm done with you, your body will be floating in Lake Tanganyika, a thousand miles away, and soon thereafter, in the Atlantic Ocean. Your comrades will never know what happen to you."

A cold fear inserted itself into him: a dagger of despair slit his heart as he realized how ignomious his death was going to be. And as she spoke her cruel worlds, he somehow knew that she was about to translate them into reality.

He knew he was already running on borrowed time: he was supposed to be dead thirty seconds ago. He didn't know why she was keeping him alive, but he had a final, trump card to play. The fundamental tenet was always OPSEC—Operational Security. It was the single, and only rule of American clandestine operations: to never betray that the U.S.A. had dirty hands frisking throughout South America, Africa, and the Middle East.

Yet, he knew he was about to die. There was no other recourse.

"I'm from Langley."

Her laughter was choral music, and he found it delightful. She didn't even bother to reply, so he decided to raise his stakes.

"We've had a satellite tagged on you and your organization since December 13th of last year, when you were still in Angola. We tracked you here to South Africa, and have had you under UAV surveillance every other day for the past two days."

He found himself pleased by the sound of the sharp uptake of her breath.

"You moved into this apartment complex five days and fourteen hours ago. In that amount of time, you have left it eight times. Four times to meet your contact within the rebels, two times to meet the same arms dealer in Freetown. The two other times you traveled beyond the endurance of the UAV, and we couldn't keep track of you after you left the city."

He felt himself nauseated by the tawdriness of his ploy: how many other CIA agents, at gunpoint, hadn't betrayed operational security? How many American agents had died, rather than divulge American secrets? How many had rather to take the bullet than to betray one's country?

But within him, he found a justification.

_Because soon she will be dead—and she'll take the secrets I just told her to the grave_.

He focused his eyes on her face: her beautiful, argent deep green eyes, melding perfectly with the lush curves of her dark, thrilling lips. In staring at her, he realized that he had an unexpected hunger within him, a feral lust—she was compellingly lovely, silhouetted against the window frame. Her body was sensuous: provocative and mesmerizing, yet as he traced the flow of muscles in her neck, he realized that her body was athletic and perfectly-tuned: despite her overflowing sensuality, this was the muscular body of a predator, built and rarefied to kill. Her scent was of acid roses.

Her face, however, had momentarily lost its previous countenance of sure victory—although her features had quickly resumed their original fate after their relapse, he knew his words had shocked her: _anyone_ would be astounded to learn that they were a target of the Central Intelligence Agency—that American intelligence had been watching them with multibillion dollar contraptions for weeks.

When her focus turned back to him, he could tell that she was obviously askance, her hard-won focus dissolved: the fact that she had a death warrant signed by the Americans on her was undoubtedly attributable for this.

"Then you're my hostage", she said evenly.

Now, it was _his_ turn to laugh. "If I don't report back, soon, you'll be having a shootout with an armed platoon of U.S. Special Forces. You tell me whether or not you think those are winning odds."

"There are no U.S. Special Forces in Africa", she said—but there was no conviction in her voice. The glamour and command had been lost from her tone.

"Well, you thought that you weren't a person of interest to the CIA, until I showed up on your doorstep", he answered evenly. "The Special Operations Command maintains a high interest on Africa. People like you are part of that interest. Either you'll die by my hand, or you'll die when this entire block is vaporized by a Predator missile from eight thousand feet."

He felt himself regaining confidence—his words of patriotism, dedication, and the sure advantage of American technology were revitalizing him—and weakening her. From her eyes, he could tell that a sudden fear was setting into her: like the eyes of dozens of others he'd killed. The fear that the world's largest superpower was hunting after them, and that the CIA and the U.S. Special Forces were about to go to any lengths to kill them. And no one escapes the reach of a superpower that controls the world.

Her words were quieter now. "Well, I know one thing for certain—I'm not dying at _your_ hands."

"Really?"

There was the nearby report of automatic gunfire: the urgent thunder of a machine gun. For the fraction of a second, her head turned towards the window—

And he acted with lethal force.

He closed the distance between them in a moment, and her eyes lost all composure of victory as they widened in surprise: she straightened her handgun, and he knew he only had a moment to act—his forefinger and thumb jammed against her wrist, and suddenly, it turned flaccid and vised open.

The handgun dropped from her hand.

His knife hand closed to her throat, and a fatal dread filled her eyes.

There was no need for words on his behalf. He felt himself fill with the adroit sense of purpose that always preceded murder.

When he looked into her face, he saw a sudden sadness—her lovely eyes and beautiful lips were now twisted in a pained, sad little moue, pathetic. He did not understand the circumlocutions that were going through her, but words emerged from her last—pained and sad.

"Is this how it's going to end?"

"Yes."

They stared in each other's eyes for an eternity—the cold metal of his knife against the cartilage of her throat, its bleak edge spattered with the dark blood of the assassins he'd killed in the hallway.

He looked into her eyes, one last time, taking in her features a final time—and as he _looked_, he saw something terrible in her beautiful eyes: a painstaking sadness, such a loss of hope that it was dehumanizing: he had his knife to the throat of a woman who had nothing left to lose. All her posturing earlier had merely been a shallow façade.

Her voice was quiet and still.

"Okay."

And then—"Make it fast, please."

As he thought about her words, he realized how ludicrous they were. _Make it fast, please?_ How ridiculous was that? She was begging that she would die quickly—why? Did she think that he was about to torture her?

He realized that extreme interrogation might actually be justified. Although the station chief had not explicitly ordered it, torturing this woman for information might actually provide an aperture onto the workings of this African terrorist group.

He cocked his head, wondering if he should torture her. Under the Special Activities Division, torture and interrogation were all tacitly approved: for the people they went after were of such great threat to American society that all means were approved to prevent them from committing their heinous acts.

Such as this woman.

Yet, even as his eyes skirted the apartment for the material to fashion an electric chair, he found himself wondering a ludicrous question.

_What has she done that I should interrogate her for? _

His lips went into a grim slash, as he realized the stupidity of that question—and what it suggested.

_Obviously she should be tortured. She's working for terrorists_.

He shook his head of the notion that he was questioning _why_ she was a despicable person. Obviously she was a person of great notoriety—why else would the CIA approve putting a geosynchronous satellite in orbit to specifically track her? Each adjustment to an electro-optical KH-13 reconnaissance satellite's sun-synchronous orbit forty two thousand kilometers above Earth was not a child's thing ordered by Langley. The U.S. had spent several million dollars worth of satellite and Predator UAV time to track – Q.E.D., this nameless terrorist was of great consequence.

Torturing her would be a necessary act to preserve national security.

_Well, I have a knife—and there are pliers to pull off fingernails. There's an AC outlet in the corner to make an electric chair_.

"What are you thinking about?" she whispered.

He shook himself of her singsong voice.

He knew what his answer would be. _I'm thinking of how many of your fingernails I'll have to pull off before you start talking_.

But as he visualized the interrogation technique, suddenly, a ball of vomit seemed to settle in his gut—he would be pulling off _her_ fingernails, off of _those_ delicate hands, while _she_ would be screaming. And as he gazed at her breathtakingly beautiful body, he found himself inexplicably decelerating. He won't just be torturing a terrorist in some province in Iraq. He would be torturing _this woman_. Someone with a face, with fears of dying and pain—he knew that from her voice. She wasn't like the Arab terrorists, who screamed at the top of their lungs about how they relished 9/11 and such and such until he interrogated and murdered them.

This woman was _scared_ of pain. He could not discern any hatred from her: so far, all her moves had been professional and economical, in self-defense.

She had not killed him when she had the chance.

And as he thought of torturing her, a sudden shame welled in him—and his face betrayed him.

"What's wrong?" she asked.

He found his knife trembling at her throat, and he was repulsed by his own sudden weakness. He remembered Langley's words—_Extraordinary rendition will not be necessary. Prosecute the target in South Africa with necessary and available force_.

But how could he _kill_ her? How could he _torture_ her?

He wavered, and his knife hand trembled as his face tensed to the density of chitin: as patriotism and something else battled in his mind. The deadly blade was centimeters from carving out his throat…

His eyelids fluttered as he fought down tears: tears at the murder he was about to commit.

His voice was choked with emotion. He needed to know something—know _one_ thing that would comfort him as he reported to his handler that he had killed his mark.

"What did you do against America?"

Her voice was strangulated with terror, and he felt the shame within him again as he heard her melodious voice crack with fright. "_What?_"

His voice was hoarse and angry. "_What did you against the U.S? Why are you here?_"

His mind was desperate—he needed her to say something incriminating, something to know why she was dead—

Her voice was trembling. She had no composure left. "I don't know what you're—"

He roared in primal rage, and shoved her back into a long couch. He picked up his handgun from the floor in a single motion and aimed it at her.

"_WHY ARE YOU HERE? WHAT DID YOU DO?_"

"I—"

"_I WANT TO KNOW EVERYTHING! WHO TRAINED YOU?_" he bellowed, infuriated at her transparent attempts at deception.

Her voice was fibrillating. "The British."

He centered the gun at her forehead as she curled on the couch, her platinum hair stained with tears.

"_What?_" he demanded.

"The British: British intelligence."


	2. September 11, 2001

**Supersymmetry**, a series of Dead or Alive short stories by **RelentlessRecusant**

About the Author: The author was a former undergraduate at the Harvard Stem Cell Institute, where he researched pluripotent stem cells and reprogramming.

About the Story: _In the most disparate of foes, startling symmetries emerge. From an encounter between a Central Intelligence Agency operator and a forlorn, particular silver-haired assassin in Africa, we learn of the textured past of one Christie Allen. Work in progress._

_"[This] postulates a more extensive symmetry ... which is manifest in this world."_

_-_Wilczek, F. "In Search of Symmetry Lost". _Nature_ (433): 239-247.

**Dramatis Personae**

Christie Allen: Female, 24 years old. British national. Currently residing in the African continent.

"Noble-Six": Male, 40 years old. American national. Central Intelligence Agency, Special Activities Division. Formerly 1st SFOD-D, U.S. Army.

**Johannesburg, South Africa**

**March 2017, eight years in the future**

"The British: British intelligence."

The keen aim of his handgun's barrel was still centered on her forehead: his fingers did not wave against the rubberized hilt of the weapon. His voice was cool, and something pounded in his head—of all the coincidences that had brought an American CIA operator to the footstep of a British intelligence agent in a forsaken land in South Africa—

Yet, he _had_ to know. Had to justify what had compelled him to murder such a beautiful creature: to bring moral basis and justification to the crime he was about to prosecute, to wrest this human woman of her life.

His forehead was throbbing with hurt from his circumlocutions. What had been a single insertion and prosecution had become convoluted into a far more complex and internecine conflict—first, defeated by this _woman_ who had just awoken, and then, besting her and seeing the terror in her eyes—

He had not bargained for this. And he was certain that Langley had not expected that one of their clandestine operators was faltering, on the edge of a successful kill.

Yet, her skill and tenacity had been unnerving: how she had attacked him from behind, assaulted him with such powerful force—it was winningly admirable. He, the Special Activities Division operator, had been poised on the cusp of death: only a few cunning words and the thankful nearby distraction of gunfire had reversed their positions. This was a woman of talent and cunning.

Her talent was troubling—or conversely, how he had been sufficiently weak to be defeated by her. Yet, her accent, her svelte body and couture—supported this. This was not an inelegant Arab terrorist fantasizing on how to attack America. Here was a feminine tool of great skill and sophistication—she was outstanding amongst the cadre of terrorists he had murdered in the Middle East, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

Complexed with her distinctive and proper British accent, and her refined elegance and body—this bespoke of an origin far more worthy and distinctive than any Arabic or African terrorist.

He frowned heavily: though nothing was overtly astray, her hesitation before killing him—the elegance of her form, her white skin and British accent—together, they suggested that _this_ target was abberant: and something inexplicably was holding his index finger from transforming her into one of the millions of languid corpses that decorated this forsaken continent.

"British intelligence? British intelligence officers I doubt would have a need to meet with arms dealers in Freetown or rebel spies in Johannesburg."

Tears adorned her crestfallen face: her silvery hair was astray, her cheeks inflamed and her breaths were fast as she trembled underneath the visage of his firearm.

"No—former MI6."

While he laughed sardonically at her words, her words perfectly fit what he was thinking. _What could be the origin for a creature of such skill and beauty?_

A frown flitted across his face. _Obviously she's using me. Trying to dissuade me from killing her—like I did to her earlier. But this time, she'll kill me before allowing me to get the upper hand again_.

"You will have to excuse me if I don't believe you", he said mockingly, even as his fingers tremored on his handgun, sensing that something disparate was far amiss—he was on the verge of losing control; he knew he was on the cusp of discovering something that he instinctively sensed was terrible. "Brothers from Langley such as I would hardly ever target one of our brothers from Her Majesty's MI6."

"_Former_ MI6", she repeated quietly.

"Very well. What's your name?"

"Allen. Christie Allen", she said, in the military tradition of answering with her last name first.

Something impulsive within him reared—at how easily he was being manipulated. This woman, with her beauty and inveigled words, was dissuading him from Langley's simplistic directive. She was playing him was extraordinary skill, generating doubts, and massaging and feeding those doubts until she could undoubtedly exploit one of his weaknesses and kill him—

His voice carried inchoate rage. "You're not British intelligence! Tell me, what business does a former British intelligence agent have with South African terrorists—_tell me!_"

She looked up at him: tears rolled like prismatic raindrops down the crevices of her flushed face. She did not make any movement towards her handgun on the floor nor to attack him—her figure was petite and small, choked with emotion and tears, and self-pity.

"I—I was an orphan. My home was an orphanage in—"

Despite the anguished twist of her face, he bellowed, "Does it look like I give a shit? There's a limit to how far I'm going to take your bullshit—how were you related to MI6?"

Her voice fluttered with fear as she raised his eyes to him again: and saw the unerring aim of his handgun as he interrogated her.

"I graduated from Cambridge—without parents nor family, I focused my life on my studies. My life was school: when I graduated Cambridge with a concentration in political science, I was immediately recruited by the Secret Intelligence Service."

The close partnership between the American and British intelligence services meant he was well-familiarized with the recruiting tactics of MI6, which closely paralleled those of the American CIA and NSA—how the intelligence agencies recruited analysts and operators from the most exceptional of undergraduate students. Even as a daemon nagged in his mind, reminding him of her beguiling talent, compelling him to kill her—there was something he _had_ to know. His hand trembled, unable to depress the lethal trigger without learning how such a sophisticated killing machine had ended up in this destitute South African slum—she was no crude terroristic tool. It was not mere fortuitous coincidence that he had met this refined creature in these wastelands.

"I was in the Intelligence Service for three years as a case handler for our sources in North Korea, keeping an eye on their nuclear weapon development. I was above the 38th Parallel when State Security turned one of my contacts and compromised the entire cell. All of our agents in North Korea were exposed."

Realization flitted across his face: he had heard of that infamous debacle. It had been a well-preserved secret, how the North Koreans had compromised British intelligence-gathering within their country—this was _real_. Her talent, her beauty, her accent, her sophistication: acquainted with a former background in MI6, it made certain sense.

"And what happened to you?" he found himself asking, a nascent curiosity arising even as his hand prepared to squeeze the handgun's trigger.

"I—I fled."

His voice snapped. "_What?_"

Her voice was slow, pained and anguished—every word that fell from her lips twisted, as if a blade planted in her heart dug deeper with every syllable. "In Credenhill, they thought that I had been a double agent for North Korean State Security all along—that I had betrayed them. I had no choice—my country thought that I had betrayed the lives of dozens of S.I.S. agents. I ran."

His eyes flickered with anger, and he became towering with rage—overlooming the petite and terrified, supine woman on the couch.

"You _betrayed_ British intelligence? You're a coward—and a traitor to your country."

His words were acrid upon her aggrieved soul: the tears fell as if peals—her beautiful face was tremoring uncontrollably.

His voice was scathing as he visualized such cowardice.

"Not only did you run from your country—now you join _terrorists_?"

He expected her to be mute, and he steadied his weapon—but surprisingly, she spoke. She was terrified, on the verge of collapse.

"No—"

The lie overflowed him with rage. "You _lie!_ I saw the reconnaissance photographs myself—you consort with South African terrorists, buy arms from rebels—betraying your oath—"

Her voice was shrill.

"When I escaped North Korea, I didn't know what to do. My country was hunting for me—"

"_And you repay them with terrorism?_" he barked.

The words brought tears to her eyes.

"No! I had no other skills besides killing—I became a freelance mercenary. I have never attacked any military or civilian targets."

His laughter was cruel and bitter. "Only you're fighting with rebels to tear down the elected government of South Africa."

Her voice was raised in terrified protest. "No—I was hired to infiltrate the terrorists and assassinate one of their leaders."

"And _who_ hired you?"

"I can't—"

His gun barrel quivered. "_Tell me!_"

She remained mute, and she trembled.

"Kill me, then."

He hesitated as he realized the enormity of the act he was about to commit—

"_Kill me!_" she shrieked, depraved. Her hand reached for her boot—

—His eyes widened at his fatal mistake—

She drew a combat knife from her shoes, and he flinched, knowing his time was over—

When she carelessly discarded it, tossing it aside. Her face was alive with pain.

"Kill me—do me a favor. I'm on the run and am hunted as a state criminal and traitor by my native country. The closest thing to a friendship that I've had is when I told a CIA assassin trying to kill me about my secret. I'm on the run, I'm poor—end this. I never had enough courage to kill myself: help me do it."

With her words, he realized how depraved she was—the wild desperation in her eyes. When she had held a gun to his chest earlier, she hadn't fired when he said he was with American intelligence—and even now, with her knife, she hadn't killed him either.

He was stunned by her words, and then seriously considered planting a bullet in her head.

As he looked at her face, he trembled—trying to murder such a despondent, hopeless, beautiful creature. He would be ashamed.

His voice wavered.

"I—I—can't."

It was a difficult call on whether or not he was stunned by his own weakness, or if she was stunned.

"_What?_" she exclaimed, screaming at him.

The barrel of his gun tremored with uncertainty—it took more and more conscious effort to lift that gun, to aim it at her—he needed conviction and strength, and those had departed him—

"I can't", he said slowly, feeling his conviction, his justification ebb and die.

"But Langley—"

Her words were the very same spoken by the sorcerer of duty within his head: if she continued to prattle, he was afraid that she would compel him to murder her.

"_No!_" he barked, clearing her words and his doubt from his brain, desperate to silence her before she reminded him of his mission administered from the CIA.

He lowered his handgun, slotted it into his holster. Shame and humility flowed through his veins as he realized that five minutes ago, he was conceiving of torturing then murdering this creature before him: her beautiful face was fractured in mortal pain—he now felt the very hesitation she had when she had considered to kill him.

And in that thought, he found a curious symmetry—how these two highly-trained assassins, one American, one Britain, making a foreign rendezvous in hellish Africa—their hesitation to kill one another, their own weakness: victims to their own empathy and doubt.

He realized how ridiculous of a situation he had been lured into—here he was, a few seconds ago holding a gun to the forehead of a broken woman begging to die, contorted in mortal agony—here in this forsaken apartment in South Africa—what had the world devolved into?

He secured her weapons, placed them in a neat row on the table—then retrieved his own and aligned them alongside hers, keeping them well out of his own reach.

Gently, he slid alongside her on the couch, enfolding her with his arms—willing to dispel the pain in her heart, anything to relieve her face of the anguished mask it had frozen into. Such an undisturbed glade of lovely beauty—and his presence, his words, had scarred a sight of such precious beauty into the hell it was right now. And to lose something of such talent and such worth—

"It's alright", he whispered. "Everything's alright."

Her body was cold and clammy to the touch: Christie flinched as he took her in his arms.

And there, they sat, in mutual embrace—her unmoving, her gaze emptily fixated at the peeling paint of the walls, as if attempted to discern some cosmic truth from them. He felt lost—he had engaged himself in a circumstance so foreign and ludicrous he had no idea of how to proceed—but her arms clung to him tightly: tacitly, he knew that she wanted his presence here—wanted everything to end.

And for hours they were still—locked together on the sofa, her eyes vacant of spirit, body breathless as her mind was lost, transversing unknown memories and sights. And him, there too, awkwardly clinging onto the cold, still body beside him, but as he turned his face to face her—he became uncomfortably aware of how close he was to her—and with a start, realized that he was contiguous with her: as he gazed deeply at her, he was reminded of his impressions of her when he had first seen her—her svelte, shining face, how her hair had fallen to the full swell of her breasts—her provocative, seamless, flowing body. He became uncomfortably aware of how their bodies were touching, and he edged to move away—

And was surprised as her hold around him hardened, keeping him here, pulling him towards her.

"Stay here awhile", she said simply.

Somehow, he savored her words, and he injected them with meaning. "Alright."

And as they drew back together, the awkwardness began to fade slightly. As they held one another, slowly, he felt himself captivated by her sensuality: the thrill of her carmine lips playing against her pale skin, how compellingly beautiful she was. He felt a hunger and an ache within him, an uncharacteristic and uncontrollable thirst.

He didn't know why she initiated it—wordlessly, she cupped his chin with her hands, gazed into his icy eyes, and then drew her trembling lips closer to his own. Their lips brushed, coldly at first, but she drew his face closer, kissing him, holding him tight as he tried to pull away. It was longing and full of desire, and he knew that a hunger was awakening as she drew her tear-streaked face away from his own. His emotions were in turmoil, astray.

Unconsciously, his hand began caressing her, running down her back and stroking her hair.

Their faces turned to each other in silence—and he gazed longingly at her dark, lush cherry lips; slightly open, as if asking for a kiss. His pulse quickened. He could withstand his growing lust no longer—hungrily, he took her in his arms, drawing her close and kissing her passionately, longingly, and he tasted the sweet fire of her lips as she returned it with quiet desire. The kiss was long and hard—he could not breathe, for he wanted her so much. His lips were afire where hers had brushed against his.

He was undoubtedly captivated—he could not resist her charms, and a feral lust burned brightly within him.

They laid there for a long time—hours passed, the sun rose in the windowsill, and then the sky exchanged noon for night, and there was no more sunlight. And she remained fixated there, her body cold and morbid to the touch, opal eyes expressionless—gazing at the whitewashed wall as if comatose. Tears adorned her cheeks and her eyes were inflamed and swollen—her austere hair was astray and disheveled, bunched with tears and sweat.

And in cradling her protectively, he found his mind wander too—explore _terra incognita_ where he'd never gone before. Here, on a compromised mission, finally was a respite from Langley's directives. And with his mental breath of fresh air, his mind chanced upon unfamiliar thoughts—emotions he'd long suppressed, memories of fallen teammates that he'd been too anguished by to remember—

He felt a rivulet of liquid run along his face, and instinctively, he brushed his hand over it—it was a teardrop.

Astride him, Christie said quietly, her voice no longer constricted with emotion, "So what's your story?"

He canted his face to look at her—bereft of the sun's illumination from the open window, the world was a chiaroscuro haze of grey and black, and her body was cold to the touch.

For some unimaginable reason, he felt an urge to entertain her, distract her from her own lethal thoughts.

"What do you want to know?"

Her eyes were still glazed, fixed upon the wall as her rosy lips moved silently. "Anything."

His mind strode into a catacomb of memories—memories from decades past, ones he'd shelved and never consulted again. He found himself trembling as he thought to remember them—an uncharacteristic fear of what he'd find, scared at—at what he'd been.

His own eyes became glazed as his sight moved beyond the current realm to an earlier date—the African apartment around him disintegrated and was replaced by a palisade of autumnal trees. It was in the Fall, and he was surrounded by other human beings—their faces wide, lips moving, but he couldn't make out their words—

His voice was slow.

"I was valedictorian of my graduating high school class, and earned my A.B. from—from—"

His voice tremored.

Christie susurrated emotionlessly, "Where?"

He was consumed again in his memory—his feet, clad in jogging shoes, not field boots—were rhythmically clipping against an asphalt pavement. His eyes were raised from the florid trees, and he saw scarlet buildings all around him—scarlet…

"Harvard", he said quietly, the scarlet memory passing into his mind. The buildings became sharper, increasing in resolution—scarlet buildings, with laughing faces and carefree humans—"A.B., concentration in Psychology, '97. Leverett House."

Her head mechanically nodded. Apparently, Christie's idea of everyday C.I.A. agents were Harvard graduates, it seemed.

"And how did you get involved in The Agency?"

His body relaxed slightly as he faded again from his realm, foraging primordial memories—sights, scenes, colors, all flashing back, overpowering him—

"I—I attended the Harvard John F. Kennedy School of Government", he said, wavering. "Ph.D. in Public Policy, '01."

"Ah", said Christie, sardonically. "Obviously, Langley needs Ph.D.s to pull the triggers of handguns. Guns are so complicated these days."

Even as her voice sarcastically and cruelly carried on, he could hear the throbbing hurt in her voice—her heart was broken and bleeding. Instinctively, protectively, he raised a hand to stroke her angelic hair—it was airy, of celestial constitution. The motion wafted the scent of roses to him, even as her face tremored, silvery tears rolling down the precipice of her strong jaw.

A dark memory arose from the depths like an ill plume of black ink unfurling in water—he felt himself nauseated, and a fierce rage flickered over him and his grip on her grew a little tighter as he felt the familiar fury pass over him.

"A week after I graduated from graduate school, it was September 11th."

In his mind, airlines ignited into fire—towers fell and flames rose towards the sky.

"The terrorists attacked the World Trade Center", he said numbly. He saw burning corpses—human forms caterwauling as the fires licked their flesh and consumed them whole. Of trembling Arabic faces, contorted in hatred—

"Al Qaeda attacked New York City and Washington D.C.—they shed American blood." His hands tremored slightly. Muzzles flashed—Arab men and women screamed at his sight. "I wanted to kill them—kill them all."

His skeleton was rigid, contorted in deplorable fury. In the darkness, her tear-streaked face turned to face him, and a mournful moue adorned her face. She saw the taste of anger in his eyes, how his body hardened as the hateful memories filled his eyes.

He continued, unable to stop, compelled by an emotional force as powerful and as inevitable as gravity.

"I went to the nearest Army recruiter—wanted my hands on a rifle, to fly over to Afghanistan. Passed Special Forces' Selection course at Fort Bragg, became airborne-qualified. They placed me in the 95th Civil Affairs Brigade, U.S. Army Special Operations Command."

The unusual phrase drew her mesmerizing eyes back to his face.

"Civil Affairs?" she whispered.

"They said I had a Ph.D. in Public Policy from Harvard—was too good to pass up. Instead of the Green Berets, the brass put me into Civil Affairs", he said, his voice thick with corrosive bitterness. "Instead of killing things, they wanted me to play along in the dog-and-pony show of civil-military operations. Wanted me to talk to the fuckin' villagers after the U.S. Army blew everything up, try to help 'em out. I didn't want to bandage some fucking kids—I wanted to kill Taliban."

The hate radiating through his voice coaxed a whimper from her—Christie gently caressed his shoulder, but he was beyond that now.

"Four years after Operation Enduring Freedom started, I was a Captain, in Civil Affairs—couldn't stand it anymore. We went into a n Afghan village bombed out by the USAF, and rebuilt it for them. Next day, Taliban comes in when we're gone, and slit the fuckin' throats of the homeowners whose houses we built. Day after that, the entire village signs up for Al Qaeda, says it's the fuckin' U.S.'s fault for why we bombed out their village in the first place."

On his shoulder, Christie was crying softly.

"Didn't want no more of that shit. I went right back to Bragg and demanded a transfer into the Airborne; the Green Berets. Goddamn terrorists—first, they kill three thousand American civilians, then they turn all those fuckin' Afghan and Iraqi civvies against us."

A cruel smile formed on his lips.

"I was too good. Bragg gave me better than the Green Berets—I passed Selection for the goddamn Unit. Yessir, Captain, U.S. Army 1st SFOD-D, Delta Force. I went right back into Afghanistan—if those terrorists wanted to turn an entire village against us, didn't matter no more. In Delta, we just called in an air strike on the entire goddamn village—the missiles didn't stop flying until I said so. If those pansy-ass terrorists wanted to spit in Civil Affairs' face, Special Forces and the USAF was gonna teach 'em better."

"One day, it was August 2012, I remember. Was a Major then, still in Afghanistan. Goddamn towel-heads tried to shoot down one of our Black Hawks and trap the rescue force, kill us all. I volunteered my team to rescue the Black Hawk crew in the mountains—we pulled 'em out, then I called down the Air Force. For twelve hours, we bombed that mountain nonstop. Planes flew right over our heads—USAF pulled out all the stops. F-22s, AC-130s, everything. When AFSOC did post-battle BDA, they counted nearly seven hundred bodies. Goddamn terrorists tried to kill us with seven hundred of themselves—yeah, and Delta taught them that you don't fuck around when you got a thousand-pound JDAM bomb with their name writtin' on it."

Christie, her face perched on his shoulder, was gazing at his anger-contorted face with a mute curiosity, with a terror at his towering anger: his skin was molten to the touch, incandescent with anger and patriotism—he was burning.

"Got a Silver Star for that one. Escalation—in Delta, we knew that escalation was the key. Terrorists try to pop an RPG up your ass, you call in a fuckin' thousand-pound bomb on them. They try to shoot some mortar rounds from a village, you flatten the entire goddamn town to kill that mortar team. After that Silver Star, Langley took me in. Special Activities Division was looking for field agents to track down Afghan terrorists who were running into Iran, or Asia or Africa. I wanted it, y'know? Terrorists want to run away to Somalia? I'll kill 'em there. They want to try to hide in Malaysia? Kill 'em there, too. Been in the C.I.A. for five years now."

His face teetered slightly as his memories melded to the present—he was in South Africa in a desolated apartment, the darkness all around him, and Christie on his shoulder, her tears rolling from her eyes to the fabric of the T-shirt on his neck.

The haze of rage grew pellucid, then faded—and he saw was Christie's face, eyes gleaming with tears. Her voice was choked with despondency, and he felt his heart stabbed every time her voice cracked with emotion. His rage, his rage—was breaking Christie's heart.

"The hate—the horror—"

Her voice was a whimper.

Gently, he tried to hold her precious jaw in his hands, kiss her on the cheek—but her skin was slick with tears, and she tried to draw herself away.

"It's okay", he whispered, savoring the feel of her satiny skin on his lips.

"I want it—I want it to end", she said with a stoic finalism, her eyelids closing.

She fell asleep a short time later. He did too.


End file.
